Upholding the Law

About the Author

Are you safer today than you were two years ago? Even with the
terrorist threat, the answer is a resounding "Yes" for
Americans-all around the country, regardless of income, race,
ethnicity or gender.

Good news abounds. New data from the Justice Department show the
crime rate today is at a 30-year low. Sexual assaults are down 25
percent from two years ago. Attempted theft is down 22 percent.
Robberies are down 27 percent.

What's behind this nationwide outbreak of safety? Well, the crime
rate is dropping because the government is using effective tools to
track and catch lawbreakers, then enforcing tough penalties against
them. It seems simple, but it's true: "crime is prevented when
career criminals are taken off the streets," as Attorney General
John Ashcroft recently observed.

One key program is "Project Safe Neighborhoods," introduced shortly
after President Bush took office. It aims to unite local, state and
federal law enforcement officials in the battle against illegal
guns. The numbers prove it's working.

In just two years, federal gun prosecutions are up 36 percent, and
93 percent of those convicted criminals have been sentenced to
prison. This explains why gun crimes are down an amazing 32
percent: The criminals who would be using illegal guns are being
caught, locked up and sent away. And all this is being done without
infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding
citizens.

Another important factor is the much-maligned Patriot Act.

The Sept. 11 attacks exposed serious weaknesses in our approach to
fighting terrorism. Fortunately, Congress acted quickly and
overwhelmingly to correct some of the problems by passing the
Patriot Act. For example, law enforcement officials now have the
same authority-under strict judicial oversight-to conduct covert
surveillance of suspected terrorists that they have long been able
to use with suspected gangsters.

With help from the Patriot Act, federal officials have broken up
terrorist cells in five states and brought criminal charges against
284 suspected terrorists. More than half of those have already pled
guilty-including "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and American Taliban
member John Walker Lindh.

But while the Patriot Act has allowed us to crack down on
terrorists, it has proven to be no threat to the civil liberties
the rest of us enjoy. Last month, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
told a congressional hearing: "I have never had a single abuse of
the Patriot Act reported to me." Feinstein also contacted the
American Civil Liberties Union-a frequent critic of the act-to see
if they had any examples of violations. "They had none," she
reported.

Finally, crime is down because the federal government is working
with local officials to get citizens involved. In just one year,
the number of National Neighborhood Watch programs has almost
doubled. That means more Americans than ever are watching for
suspicious activity where they live and work. They're reporting
suspected crimes instead of ignoring them, enabling police to
arrest wrongdoers before a single incident turns into a crime
spree.

Despite the pervasive good news on the crime front, the U.S.
Attorney General must feel like a man under siege. Most of the
Democratic presidential candidates have taken shots at him. For
example, Howard Dean declared, "John Ashcroft is not a patriot.
John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joe McCarthy." Sen. John Edwards,
D-N.C., added: "The last thing we need to do is turn our rights,
our freedom and our liberties over to John Ashcroft."

Listening to that, primary voters could be forgiven if they've
started to think Ashcroft is Public Enemy #1. But the fact is,
there are fewer public enemies on the streets today because the
initiatives championed and used by Ashcroft are working so
well.

Many lawbreakers have already been caught and incarcerated. The
rest live in fear they'll be next. And that's good news for
law-abiding citizens everywhere.

Ed
Feulner is president of The Heritage Foundation
(heritage.org), a Washington-based public policy research
institute.